Software runtime engines frequently enable clients to add specialized behavior via one or more runtime extensions. To this extent, a software runtime engine can provide extension points, each of which describes interfaces that a runtime extension must follow to integrate with the runtime code. For example, an extension point can comprise a user exit that allows a client-registered function to be called, a replaceable subsystem (e.g., an authorization subsystem), and/or the like.
A tooling system is frequently used for creating program code executed by a corresponding runtime engine. To date, tooling approaches are limited in their ability to leverage capabilities provided by runtime extensions due to a lack of built-in knowledge of these runtime extensions. As a result, current tooling approaches are either limited to the use of built-in features of the runtime engine or require a runtime extension-specific tooling system to create program code that uses and/or is executed by the runtime extension.
Further, with the growing acceptance of data representation standards with built-in extensibility mechanisms, such as extensible markup language (XML) and Web Services Description Language (WSDL), runtime engines will need to support extension points based on particular additions to an extensible data format. To this extent, the corresponding tooling system(s) will need to support the end user's creation and manipulation of data objects that use these extensions. In fact, the data format of the extension-specific data may be provided by a third-party vendor and be unknown to the tooling system. To date, tooling approaches do not address this situation.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists to overcome one or more of the deficiencies in the related art.